June 2017

HZK vs. Io Shirai HZK almost snaps herself in half launching backwards on Io's front dropkick, and I loved the way she took Io's tombstone too. Her bumping was on point here. This was a back and forth match that flowed well, and HZK came off looking strong with her Michinoku driver on the apron. Unfortunately, the heat was lacking and the crowd was strangely not as lively as you would think for this match-up. ***

Maybe it takes Kobashi on commentary for Go to go out there and deliver a great performance but he was awesome here looking every bit up to the challenge to go mano y mano with Okabayashi with his mentor looking on. The interview after the match with his chest a full shade of red and purple shows how stiff the match overall was. This had a great dynamic of the old guard and new guard with them going after each other as well as mixing in the young guns into the proceedings. Takuya Nomura is now in his 2nd year and still progressing to where he should be one of the mainstays in the main event seen probably relatively sooner than later. The match progressed from the forearm …

It's always fun when Meiko and/or Hiroyo show up on a Fortune Dream show and here they bring a couple of youngsters along for the ride. They work a quick pace while everyone gets to show off what they can do. The finish felt a bit rushed but considering the amount of time and placement on the card it's not that unexpected. Quite the rockin' little match here. ****

The actual match portion of this is pretty good, I think, on par with their Takeover match more or less. Cross especially is just a ball of viciousness, which brings out good stuff in Asuka, and Ruby holds up her end of the deal too. As far as throwing a rating on it, I don't really have a standard for this sort of thing. Bell to bell it's recommendable for sure, but after it gets thrown out (which is a bad "ending") it really turns into an excellent arena brawl with Asuka and Cross. That brawl includes not only punching and getting thrown into the usual walls but Cross hilariously dunking Asuka's face into a water cooler and then pretty organically making their way over …

This is the final of the Gran Alternativa tournament and it's a great showcase for Soberano. He looks super impressive here and UG is a wonderful base for him. My favorite moment is right at the beginning of the third fall where Soberano gets the best of Sanson in a slick rope-running sequence and Ultimo comes into the ring and just runs straight into him, which Soberano takes as a gnarly looking bump under the middle rope, bouncing off the floor. There are a few things with Caristico in the final fall that drag this down for me a smidge, but overall it's easily one of the best CMLL matches so far this year. ****1/4

This is about as good an Abyss match as you are going to have. Ki bumps huge for all of Abyss's spots, kicks the big guy pretty hard and they have a bunch of amusing horseshit, plus where are in and out in under 7 minutes. Abyss is the hired gun of the Killer Cult faction in AAW and cost Ki the AAW title in our reigning match of the year. Here the story of the match is the manager paying for his sins. First Ki just wipes him out with a diving through the ropes dropkick. Then they have a fun finish with Ki hurling a handful of thumbtacks into Abyss's eyes, the blinded Abyss chokeslams his manager into the tacks and gets rolled up for the pin. Kind of a waste of Ki (so many…

not my style of a match I admit but based on this I would like dive deeper into NSW Orlov and the two ladies[ the is an intergender match ] being the standout workers in the match why did I say not my style it's ve us indie style good us Indy style like Nigel or Dragon or alike nope this has the worst tropes of us indie style ie No Logic in the moves and very little to no flow [ ie Kings Road Sans the Nuance] example the finish was move that focused on the back/ribs and no prior work done on that body part with well we all know what moves found if that area oi can recount one move done by the winning …

After an incredible 2016, Black Terry still just keeping on giving. Another great match against a youngster filled with excellent storytelling, slick matwork and intense exchanges.

I keep up with lucha ok usually, but I saw this pretty high up on a list in the MOTY thread and hadn't watched it yet, and it really delivered. I generally love the opening to a match in which the first wrestler to enter dives onto the second one before they enter the ring, and Iron Kid tries that here but Demus doesn't so much catch him as redirects him, flinging him from the top of his head into a post. We then get a nice beatdown including some fork action. Iron Kid hits some really beautiful dives when he eventually gets back on offense. There's also a moment near and dear to my heart where Iron Kid attempts to start a pissing contest chest slap exchange, which tends …

I LOVED their Backlash match & this was just as good, if not a little better. I gotta say I definitely did not expect Randy Orton & Jinder Mahal to have such great chemistry w/ each other, but goddamn I am glad they do. Loved the beginning with Randy completely overwhelming Jinder, Jinder was in big trouble until he sent Orton flying to the outside, leg first. That lead to Jinder working on top in AWESOME fashion - loved all of his offense & that leg work was really great. Orton sold it really well too. Just a super well put together, laid out match. Can't wait for part III. ****

I thought this was pretty rad - probably checked in around ***3/4 or so for me. The following is our recap from Ioan Morris at PTBN

World of Stardom Championship: Io Shirai © vs. Mayu Iwatani This was a great match, but never reached that next level due to Io's selective selling of the neck. There are moments where she collapses due to her bad neck, followed by moments where she's jumping around, throwing German suplexes without so much as wincing. I thought it made the match less compelling, and Mayu's big moment didn't feel as grand because of it. But, there is a lot to be enjoyed here, like Mayu's tombstone! I hope she adopts it in tribute to Io. ***1/2

This is a rematch of the 10 minute draw that these two had back in March. Chihiro is just an absolute beast here, dominating early on with matwork then making an awesome surging comeback. Yamashita works a smart, tactical match in response. She picks her spots well while focusing her offense on trying to slow Chihiro down. The finish has some very physical back and forth leading toward a draw. Best match so far this year for both women. ****1/4

This is a non-title match, (don't get me started on WAVE's booking.) Despite this, it doesn't stop this two from going all out and producing the best joshi matches so far this year. The opening exchanges are fantastic, especially how Mizunami works her headlocks in a grinding fashion. Shida doesn't get any momentum till the action spills to the outside were she is able to out-brawl Mizunami. The transitions in this match were great as well, with Mizunami needing a good three tries before gaining control, while Shida sneaks in cheap shots with her kendo stick. The finish is a draw, but they still end it with a great finishing run before time runs out. ****1/2

I thought this was pretty easily the worst ROH PPV main event since their return to PPV three years ago (for BitW in fact). Yes, even worse than the Anniversary show 5-way with the bad ending. Commentary tries to put over Cody as this bad heel, but it comes off empty because the crowd is fully behind him. Then they structure parts of the match around getting him heat (like with Cary Silkin - and BC interference), which comes off as flat as possible. Poor Kazarian saves Daniels and fights off Scurll to CRICKETS. Cody's lip is legit busted pretty early, so there's that as a visual I guess. The timing is not good at all between these two. And what makes the bad timing even w…

A super fun, great spotfest. All 6-men involved killed it. Trent continues to impress w/ his terrific performances, he's having such a great year. ****1/4

They got that big WWN Championship match coming up the next day in EVOLVE, so they didn't go all out here - instead of delivering an all-out epic, they delivered a simple David vs. Goliath match up - which I was very happy about. You got Keith Lee doing his awesome monster work on top while Riddle tried to chop him down with his fantastic strikes. Great stuff. ****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqXr9D8bG_s Much has been written on this forum about Trevor Lee and his historic title reign as the CWF-Mid Atlantic Heavyweight Champion and here we have yet another piece of the puzzle to show us Lee's diversity and flexibility in the ring. In this match, we have ourselves a No Disqualification, No Time Limit environment since Lee wanted to beat his challenger, Nick Richards, at his own game. The opening moments set the tone for the match with Richards hitting his signature cutter twice right out of the gate. From there the action is intense but incredibly well-paced. Too many hardcore matches suffer from trying to do too much to…

If you enjoy watching Thatcher on the offense, you'll love this. It's all about the returning Thatcher taking the youngster, Austin Theory, to school by dominating him w/ his terrific submissions & strikes. Theory also makes some awesome comebacks which Thatcher sells perfectly. Great match. ****

A bloody brawl in a dirty arena. Terry and Demus spend most of the match fighting around the small, dingy venue. Demus spits a fan's beer into Terry's face and Terry returns the favour by bloodying Demus with some stiff headbutts. These guys know how to brawl. We get to see some actual wrestling moves once the action goes to the ring, with 65 year old Terry busting out a lung blower and eating a devastating top rope splash. This isn't the best brawl that you'll ever see, but it's great to see that this style of wrestling is still alive in this decade. I love me some gritty lucha. ★★★¼

This was like their Beyond match that happened a day earlier, but an epic version of that. Dramatic sequences & counters w/ Keith Lee being awesome as always in that monster role just throwing Riddle around & Riddle selling his ass off while chopping him down with his excellent strikes & submissions. Loved it. ****1/2

Hana DATE vs. Maruko Nagasaki These two bring the intensity in their body language and facial expressions. It helps that Hana looks like she isn't all there. They're going at it with haphazard offense that I thought fit the narrative of this heated rivalry, before they get into the 'grounded' stuff. I enjoyed a lot of what Hana was doing here, and dug the ending where she kept pressing the advantage when she had Maruko down. ***1/2

Similar structure to some of the recent Nakajima title defences, a little chain wrestling, some brawling outside and then the match starts proper. The weight Nakajima puts behind his kicks never ceases to impress me-they're so incredibly sharp, it really shows he is a black belt karateka. This match needed more focus-there weren't really any control segments, and the only things setting it apart from just *getting stuff in* was them building stuff around countering each other's signature maneuvers. And some of the counters were good (Nakajima's particularly-Kotoge's signature spots are very unique in their elaborateness, and the stark contrast of Nakajima just cutting the…

Matches like this are my favorite thing about current NOAH: sub-fifteen minute licks of spitfire and aggression. Kaito Kiyomiya is already such a good, fiery babyface and I really enjoy him in these matches where he's getting his ass kicked but he keeps on bringing it. Tons of hard slaps and kicks, with Kiyomiya constantly getting in Kenoh's face only to keep getting shut down. He gets some time to shine, hitting a big top rope dropkick and a fisherman suplex hold but Kenoh's able to avoid the German suplex attempts, at one point taking him down with a swank transition into the ankle hold. There's a great moment where Kenoh's dishing out the slaps and Kaito just smacks hi…

OZ Academy Tag Team Championship: Hikaru Shida & Syuri © vs. MK4 (AKINO & Kaho Kobayashi) I've been really enjoying AKINO's work lately, and I thought she was solid here; I dig her approach to these tag matches. Kaho is obviously the FIP, and she did a great job; Shida & Syuri's work over session was rough (in a good way). My favorite moment is when Shida chucks her shinai at AKINO. Great match. ***3/4